Maroon Rising (21 page)

Why did I always feel like fate was testing me, one shit grenade after another? Was the universe trying to see how much I could take before I imploded?

Just when the conditions didn’t seem like they could get any worse, we passed around the outer edge of the Coast Guard base at Port Royal, where several of their ships sat idle in port. The waves intensified. Our speed didn’t help—the bow dove into a wave and water exploded over our heads.

Jack’s flotilla was intact on their site. Betty was there too, her wings bobbing like a seesaw in the surf. They hadn’t given up, or at least they hadn’t reduced their presence here. Past them was our smaller group of boats, lifting on waves, each at a different rhythm. The Beast was there too, her wings rolling wildly.

Sorry, girl. Not the best day for a flying boat to be anchored out here.

We took a wide berth around Jack and I could see men with binoculars trained upon us, others holding weapons.

“Not hiding this time?” Johnny said. “So much for Ray’s costume.”

“They know I’m not there.”

With our boats in sight, I reduced power and chose a careful path toward the Viking, which was also bobbing in what I estimated to be three-foot seas. As we wove in between one of our smaller boats and the tug, I couldn’t help doing the math on this enterprise: nearly fifty thousand dollars at this point. Harry Greenbaum—damn, I owed him an update.

Johnny threw the line to the mate on the deck of the Viking. He missed, and the line fell back in the water. Johnny pulled it up quick, coiled it, bent down, and threw it underhand—this time the mate snagged it out of the air and wrapped it around a stern cleat.

Now Johnny pulled us close, and I killed the engines. With both boats rocking violently it wasn’t an easy or graceful jump onto the Viking, but I made it.

“Ray?” I called when I reached the hatch and proceeded down the steps. “You down here?”

His head popped up from a bunk on the starboard side—he looked green.

“Buck …”

“You ready to blow this roller coaster ride?”

His head dropped onto the pillow. “So … sick.”

“Sorry, brother. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

I helped him out of the bunk and his legs buckled when they hit the deck. When I wrapped my arm around him he looked at me, his eyes a bit watery but surprisingly sharp. He rallied and pushed my arm off.

“I’m on the first plane … out … of here.”

“Get your shoes on, I’ll grab your bag.”

It was an effort, but Johnny got us shuttled out to the Beast, which was rollicking in the waves like a bucking bronco. Ray shot me an incredulous look, but I could tell his desire to get in the air, or at least back on land, exceeded his concern about the takeoff conditions. Once I got the hatch open and Ray inside to begin the preflight inspection, I turned back to Johnny Blake.

“Party’s over, Johnny.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means when the seas settle down, return all the boats to port, terminate the contracts, get the men paid and wrap this charade up.”

His eyes cut to slits. “What did you and Nanny find?”

“Nothing yet. She’s been taken hostage.”

“Shit!” Johnny’s brow wrinkled. “In exchange for what?”

“I have forty-eight hours to find the treasure and get out of Jamaica or they’ll kill her.”

He stood straight, rock steady on the pitching deck.

“The hell—you can make that?”

“Not even close.”

I turned and tried to climb into the bouncing hatch, slipped, and my right leg slid into the cold water up to my balls. I pulled hard on the handle, my eyes laser focused on the boat slamming into the water. Johnny backed away.

I gained purchase and pulled myself inside.

Johnny cut in next to the Beast—

“Watch that wing!”

“You keep me posted!” Johnny yelled back. “I’m still a part of this—”

I waved once, then hauled on the anchor rope until it came free. I pulled it up so fast my arms burned, then dropped it on the deck and slammed the hatch shut. Just then the prop on the port engine turned and a backfire made me jump. Ray was sideways in the left seat—his complexion still slightly green—but he was working the controls to get the Beast going.

“Get the bow anchor,” he said. “We’re floating askew into the oncoming waves.”

I dove down between the seats, barely avoided smashing my already aching skull on the bulkhead. I shimmied in until I could kneel and popped the bow hatch just enough to release the line attached to the anchor, which disappeared instantly—what’s another $300 at this point?

The Beast shook as the starboard engine coughed to life. I felt the waves lift us up at an angle and slam the starboard wingtip into the water as Ray added thrust and jockeyed to get us positioned on the waves. On my knees, I tried to time my passage through the narrow hatch back into the cabin. We rolled from side to side as the plane lurched in motion, the flying boat anything but nimble. I was propelled forward, and my forehead hit the bulkhead—HARD. And yes, I saw stars. Dammit!

Icing on the concussion cake.

I baby-crawled out and gazed up at Ray, his lips pressed tight, color back in his cheeks, his eyes glancing from wingtip to wingtip, his feet shuffling on the pedals as his right hand pulled and pushed on the throttles—it almost made me smile. He was in the moment, no fear, no whining, no—

“Get your ass up here and get buckled in!”

I scurried out and into the right seat. “I take it you’re up to this?”

He snorted but kept his attention on each indicator of potential danger, knowing how easily he could capsize us if he made the wrong move.

“You think I’d trust you to get us out of this mess? Ha! Now buckle up.”

I followed orders, called out waves, and kept quiet a couple times when I felt myself about to question his moves—he had the helm, not me.

The wind whipped perpendicular to the waves, from the east, and Ray—massaging the throttles and flaps, crabbing forward to keep us from slamming too hard in the rough water—had us on a course toward the Coast Guard base. He was trying to make the lee of the wind, which the land might provide. There was still heavy water there, too, but it was a sound strategy—

A wave caught the port float, pulling us into the incoming whitecap—the port prop caught the water and tore at the ocean’s surface.

Ray jumped up in the seat and leaned to the starboard side. I did the same, an effort more out of instinct than any practical value—the eight-thousand-pound Beast ignored our collective four-hundred-plus pounds. The float popped free when the wave passed and we dropped back down. Ray maneuvered us back east and added throttle—we slammed down but gained speed.

“We’re surfing!” Ray yelled.

I watched the tachometers and speed indicators. He’d found an equilibrium that had us stable—land was close.

“Don’t get too close to the Coast Guard, Ray—they’ll shoot at us.”

The Beast shimmied and shook and our speed increased steadily. Moments later we lifted off the water—the breeze blew hard over the land and caught us in sudden turbulence. We slammed back down—

The starboard wingtip dropped. I saw a burst of water shoot toward me. Ray jerked back on the wheel with one hand and pressed the throttles forward with the other, then banked hard to the north. We caught the wind just right and the Beast ascended steeply.

“What’s with the goofy smile?” Ray’s voice sounded inside my headset.

“Nice job.”

“Shit, I probably have more hours in this old bird than you do,” he said.

“Given your maniacal tinkering to keep her running, that’s probably right.”

I grinned. Ray’s work was invaluable, and he knew it. I liked to bust his balls anyway.

“Where the hell are we going?” he said. “Key West, I hope.”

“Not yet. Take her back to Ian Fleming. We still have work to do.”

“You have any luck yet? Aside from with—”

“Nanny was kidnapped.”

“What?” He whipped around to face me.

“We have two days to find the treasure, hand it over, and get out of Jamaica, or they say they’ll kill her.”

He was staring at me as if I’d just said the craziest thing he’d ever heard. Which it probably was. Then he lifted his chin.

“So what are we going to do, Buck?”

“Find
this
damned treasure—or flush the kidnappers out in the process and find Nanny ourselves.”

W
e flew as low as air traffic control would allow, first up the western mountain range that led to the Cockpit Country, then in a pattern around Albert Town and Accompong. Nanny’s coded clue—to her whereabouts? To the treasure’s whereabouts—went around and around on a loop in my brain.

The answer’s up in the air
.

The answer’s up in the air
.

What the hell that meant, I had no idea.

Just as we’d done at Isla Vaca, Ray and I searched for circular formations that might resemble the petroglyph from the Blue Mountain crossing. From this altitude it was hard to see much detail, though we’d both spotted several caves, small contiguous ponds, sinkholes, and even adjacent hilltops that had some similarity to the carving.

“How would the people who carved those rocks hundreds of years ago know what any of this looked like from the sky?” Ray said.

A smart question, but those circles and ovals were all I had to go on. We requested and were granted permission to vector toward Oracabessa, where we landed at Ian Fleming International Airport. As Ray shut the Beast down, I placed a couple phone calls and came up with a quick strategy.

“The wheels are turning,” I said when Ray joined me on the tarmac.

He ignored me and tied down the wings, no doubt irritated that I’d done nothing to assist. When the fuel jockey appeared, Ray wasted no time asking them to top off the tanks. He was ready to go home, and he didn’t want anything to delay our departure.

I got it, but I wasn’t going anywhere until Nanny was free.

When he finished we walked inside and waited in the pilot’s lounge for our ride.

“What’s with Johnny Blake?” Ray said.

“What do you mean?”

“He was a flaming asshole out on the water.”

That didn’t sound like Johnny. “How so?”

“Grumpy, yelling at the men—shouted at me when I wanted to get some fresh air. Spent most of the time on his cell phone.”

I remembered him flirting with the girl on the beach. “Talking to women?”

Ray scowled. “I don’t know, he was whispering off in the corner. He looked upset about something.”

“I have no idea. I’ve known him for a couple years—he sold me the letter that led to the Port Royal fiasco.” I smiled. “Cost Dodson a few million by now.”

“Well, he’s a weird dude. Gave me the creeps.”

“Johnny’s looking for a big payout. Who knows, could be living above his means and broke like the rest of us—”

A horn sounded. When I glanced out the window I saw the Land Rover, McGyver waiting beside it, his smile a momentary relief given all that had happened in the past couple days.

“Buck Reilly, what’s up, big boss?”

“Nice to see you, McGyver. Let’s head back to GoldenEye. I’m expecting some visitors at Bizot in an hour or so.”

After we loaded up he offered us Blackwell Rum punches from his cooler, which both Ray and I declined for different reasons. As we entered the gate of the resort I was crushed that I’d left here with Nanny and was returning without her.

Cymanthia greeted us at the front desk and said we could stay in Villa 001 tonight, which only had one bed, and informed us the resort was totally full tomorrow night. Villa 001 was directly adjacent to the Ian Fleming Villa.

Ray claimed the bed and I took the couch in the villa’s living area. While he disappeared to take an outdoor shower under a banyan tree, I sat in the sun and laid out each of the archives, just like I’d done with Nanny a few days ago. I grabbed a notepad and pen and started listing open questions:

Njoni, son of Akim, friend of Morgan, wrote the Port Royal letter for misdirection. Had moved to the Leeward Windward region. Had he brought the treasure there to hide on Morgan’s behalf?

Morgan’s notes indicated they might have dropped “cargo,” which I assumed meant treasure, near Port Antonio and up the Rio Grande. But where did they go from there? The elders in Moore Town had no idea.

Blue Mountain: the reference about the flash at dawn from the peak on Blue Mountain led to wall carvings that might go back as far as the Taino Indians. But what did they represent?

When Morgan returned from London after being arrested for attacking Panama, he had retired as a privateer and officiated over pirate hangings at Port Royal. Why? To get rid of the competition and disgruntled former crew members? Did they know he’d hidden something?

A future meeting had been set for 23 June 1690, but Morgan had died before that date.

One of the pages that had chicken scratch on it might very well be a map. But what did these symbols mean?

III =III ^III 0

Assuming it referred to the treasure, what fuck did
the answer’s up in the air
mean?

“What are you doing?” Ray was wearing a red batik print bathrobe that sent an immediate shiver through me—it was the same color and pattern as the one Nanny had worn for our moonlight swim. “You okay?”